Recording apparatuses such as facsimile machines, copiers, and printers record an image on a recording medium such as paper, cloth, or an overhead projector sheet (“OHP” sheet). The methods by which these recording apparatuses perform image recording are an ink-jet method, a wire-dot method, a thermal method, and the like. Furthermore, these recording methods are either a serial-type method or a line-head-type method. In the serial-type method, a recording head performs recording while moving on a recording medium. In the line-head-type method, recording is performed by a recording head that is fixed to the main body of the apparatus.
For example, in a line-head-type ink jet recording apparatus, an image is formed on a recording medium such as a sheet by ejecting ink from ink ejection nozzles of a line head having a recording range equal to or greater than the width of the recording medium, while the recording medium is conveyed at a high speed by conveying means such as a conveying belt that is provided in the main body of the apparatus. In this way, printing can be performed at a high speed as compared to a serial-type ink jet recording head that reciprocates in the width direction of a recording medium.
In some of such ink-jet-type printers, the recording head is capped in order to prevent drying of ink in the ink ejection nozzles (openings provided in the ink ejection surface of the recording head), or clogging up of the nozzles. Moreover, before capping the recording head, sometimes recovery processing of the recording head is performed by ejecting ink and thereafter wiping off ink adhering to the ink ejection surface. Thus, ink jet recording apparatuses in which the ink ejection surface is wiped and a cap is mounted on the recording head are known.
For example, an ink jet recording apparatus that has an ink jet recording head (recording head), and a maintenance mechanism (recovery device) that has a cap (cap portion) and a wiping blade (wiping portion) and is housed below ink-supplying paths that supply ink to the nozzles is known. When image forming is not being performed, the maintenance mechanism comes into contact with or close to nozzle plates of the ink jet recording heads and performs maintenance. This type of ink jet recording apparatus can be downsized, and the wiping blade wipes the ink ejection surface of the recording head by moving in a direction perpendicular to the direction in which the recording medium is conveyed.
However, in the above-described ink jet recording apparatus, since the recovery device wipes the ink ejection surface of the recording head by moving in a direction perpendicular to the recording-medium-conveying direction (in the longitudinal direction of the recording head), the distance over which the wiping portion moves is long, and the time taken for the wiping is long.